Using the increasingly complex job descriptions written to recruit User Experience (UX) practitioners, this seminar promises to clarify expectations of the UX role and tools for better articulating a job posting, and ultimately secure a better fit between candidates and those doing the hiring.

Our speakers, two of Milwaukee’s most vocal UX advocates, live this daily. Mike Kornacki, User Experience Architect at Johnson Controls and Michael Seidel, User Research Lead, Johnson Controls, offer their entertaining yet enlightening insight into the rapidly evolving field and share how they’ve stayed abreast to hire the best.

Ashley leads UX at Okanjo, a local startup focusing on eCommerce for media. Prior to Okanjo, she worked at Direct Supply as a developer and then as a UX Designer.

In her talk, she’ll give practical advice about how to build understanding between the development and UX teams. Several developers will accompany her to answer questions from their point of view after the presentation.

This is purely a social event. No formal presentation or topic. It’s a great opportunity to share conversation, merriment, and holiday cheer with your fellow UXers! Laughlin Constable is kindly covering part of the bar tab, so plan to arrive early and have a drink on them. C2 will be providing Transfer Pizza and bringing a bunch of Adobe goodies!

We look forward to seeing you there. And really, super looking forward to all the exciting things we have planned for 2015.

Description of her talk: In the future, emerging technology will infuse data into the fabric of our world resulting in immersive, contextually relevant experiences. To generate these immersive experiences, we will need to uncover customer needs beyond those high-level key moments of truth across the journey. We need to expose the micro-moments that matter. Just as organizations invest in experience evolution, so too must they evolve their business model based on learnings.

So, this is a bit late, but we were having some technical difficulties with our hosting company. All better now.

Anyway, Tony Beuche was kind enough to share his presentation with us from the other night. It was a great presentation that drove a lot of amazing conversation and sparked a lot of ideas around UX and agile process. Thanks, Tony!

When: Tuesday, Aug 26, 6:30pmWhere:Irish Pub, 2nd floor (124 N Water St)Cost: FREE!RSVP:Here (note: you are not required to RSVP to attend. Feel free to just show up!)

Tony Beuche is a certified usability analyst at the Bradley Corporation. He’s worked with developers Dean Del Ponte and Adrian Moore to build a strong UX/Agile development process that can cycle projects in house from user research all the way through to final user testing and launch.

In his mkeUX presentation, Tony will talk how that process works in the context of a project like replacing a large website+CMS. He’ll show how the UX and development stages of the process flow into each other to maintain velocity, and how the process is designed to evolve as they learn new things. Along the way, he’ll share some excellent industry tools and best practices that have made their way into the process.

If you’ve ever been to one of our meetups, you’ve likely noticed that our projector screen is a cold war relict, a heavy metal artifact of another, clunkier age. The screen is dented from years of being rolled up and unused. The thing weighs a TON. Kornacki lovingly but unkindly refers to it as THE ALBATROSS.

If the thing was an automobile, it’d qualify for a collector’s plate. But as a screen, well, it’s just an old piece of junk.

Time, dudes…it moves on.

This is where you can help.

mkeUX has always been and will always be FREE to attend. We run it without a budget (all event space is lovingly donated). As someone who has attended meetings, met new people, and learned new stuff, can you give back by helping us buy a new screen?

We’re looking to gather ~$150 for a screen like this one. (update: We met our goal!)

We’ll remove the link as soon as we’ve met our goal.

So what do you say…will you help project us into the modern age? We’ll love you forever.

When: June 23, 2014 6:30pmWhere:Irish Pub, 2nd floor (124 N Water St)Cost: FREE!RSVP: Here (note: you are not required to RSVP to attend. Feel free to just show up!)

The project teams at Centare have been producing software using Agile techniques for over 5 years. Developers, Quality Assurance, Product Owners, Scrum Masters and User Experience members work closely together to adhere to Agile principles while still remaining highly productive. Every sprint is seen as an opportunity to experiment and improve our techniques.

Several members from the Centare UX team will share their stories and experiences to describe how they have successfully incorporated Lean UX methods into an Agile practice to improve collaboration and the flow of information throughout the entire project’s lifecycle.

When: April 1, 2014 6:30pmWhere:Braise (1101 S. 2nd Street, SECOND FLOOR)Cost: FREE!RSVP: Here (note: you are not required to RSVP to attend. Feel free to just show up!)

Kate Gomoll, president and founder of Gomoll Research & Design, is well known for her field research expertise. She has managed and conducted user research for many companies like Apple, GE Healthcare, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson Controls, and Yahoo!

In her mkeUX presentation, Kate will share what she’s learned in her 20+ years of conducting field user research. She’ll also give ideas about how you can integrate field research into your organization’s UX practice.